supergame

A series of repetitions of the same game between (among) the same players. Especially in Prisoners' dilemma and chicken games, the supergame is important because it may (but need not) result in the cooperative equilibrium that rational players fail to reach in the single-shot (one-off) game. A well-known application of the prisoners' dilemma supergame is R. Axelrod, The Evolution of Co-operation (1984). Axelrod suggests that such phenomena as the live-and-let-live agreement between Allied and German troops on the Western Front in the First World War, and some forms of cooperation among animals, may be regarded as supergame equilibria.